overview

literary

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art forgery

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     overview

This profile considers online and offline forgery.

It covers -

• literary forgery and fraud
• historic forgery and fraud
• forgery of currency (counterfeiting), financial instruments and accounts
• religious forgery (sacred texts and artefacts)
• antiquities & ethnographica
• art forgery - 'old masters, fresh paint' and the forgery of past and contemporary art
• antiques - the forgery of furniture and other antiques
• collectibles - the forgery of militaria, toys, memorabilia and other collectibles
• consumer brands such as bags, pens and the $5 Rolex
• components - fake aircraft and auto parts, computer chips, pharmaceuticals ...
• performance - authenticity in music and other performance
• registration - passport, birth certificate, driver licencing and other forgery and fraud
• certification - forgery of academic and professional certificates
• wills - anxiety and anecdotes about bequests
• email - forgery of email by spammers and others
• forensics - comments on principles and technologies
• prevention - anti-forgery technologies and practice
• Aust law - common law and special purpose legislation in Australia
• other law - overseas law regarding forgery
• fiction - forgery in film, the novel and poetry
• memoirs - autobiographies and other memoirs by forgers
• landmarks - key events in the history of forgery

It supports discussion of creativity and authenticity in the Identity crime, Electronic Publishing, Intellectual Property, Consumers & Online Trust and Security & InfoCrime guides on this site.

It is complemented by discussion of computer forensics.

      emulation, appropriation and authenticity

Definitions of 'forgery' are contentious, particularly among some literary and philosophy circles where notions of authorial intent, authenticity or provenance are seen as less important than reception by an audience or the forger's creativity. Some authors and theorists have sought to differentiate forgery from mystifications, works that cannot be readily 'placed'.

For the purposes of this profile we regard forgery as something that is intended for acceptance as an original work by another author or as an approved copy/manufacture (eg meant to be perceived as a genuine 'brand' product rather than an unauthorised imitation).

Perceptions of authenticity and value vary significantly. Hillel Schwartz's The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles (New York: Zone Books 1997) and Nick Groom's The Forger's Shadow (London: Picador 2003) for example note tensions in recent western culture regarding the status of the 'perfect' copy.

Ken Ruthven's postmodernist Faking Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2001) questions the notion of authenticity, as

the production of a literary forgery is an act that reveals the spurious nature of literature itself ... literary forgery is the creative manifestation of cultural critique ... an antinomian phenomenon produced by creative energies whose power is attested to by the resistance they engender in those who feel compelled to denounce and eradicate it

William Alford's To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilisation (Stanford: Stanford Uni Press 1995) illustrates arguments in some cultures that emulation is as important as originality: "the highest compliment one can be paid is to be copied" and an undetectable forgery might have a value greater than that of the work which it replicates.

Non-Western cultures have, however, clearly accommodated concerns about integrity or authenticity - with China having severe sanctions for over 2,000 years against forgery of coinage, paper currency and legal documents.

Three points of reference for artistic emulation and originality are The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality & Tradition from the Present to Classical Antiquity (Ann Arbor: Uni of Michigan Press 2002) by Elaine Gazda, The Forger’s Art: Forgery and the Philosophy of Art (Berkeley: University of California Press 1983) edited by Denis Dutton and Issues of Authenticity in Chinese Painting (New Haven: Yale Uni Press 2001) edited by JG Smith.

Questions of personal ethics and authenticity are explored in the large 'civil society' literature, including William Miller's Faking It (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2003), Sisela Bok's Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment & Revelation (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1985) and Lying: Moral Choice in Public & Private Life (New York: Vintage 1978) and David Callahan's The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong To Get Ahead (New York: Harcourt 2004). Cultures of Forgery: Making Nations, Making Selves (New York: Routledge 2003) by Judith Ryan & Alfred Thomas considers 'legitimation' of nation-building in recent centuries.

     motivations and markets

The following pages suggest that the creation of forgery - and, just as importantly, its acceptance - involves an interaction between the forger, gatekeepers of authenticity (eg art critics, auction houses and registry offices) and consumers.

Some forgery has been undertaken for money. Other forgery has been undertaken for glory or a spirit of devilment, cocking a snook at experts and purchasers.

The success of much forgery is dependent on complicity, tacit or otherwise, by gatekeepers; one reason that we have highlighted the role and problematical ethos of major fine art auction houses.

The complicity of consumers is also important, whether that is the credulity and greed of industrialists who purchased supposed letters from Christ and Cleopatra ('originals', written in French on modern blue notepaper) or literateurs who thrilled to the fictions of Thomas Chatterton and Clifford Irving.

In considering many forgeries it is difficulty to go beyond Washington Irving's tart 1815 comment about acceptance of spurious Shakespeare relics, with consumers

ever willing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing. What is it to us, whether these stories be true or false, so long as we can persuade ourselves into the belief of them?

Perhaps that is one key to contemporary adoption of faux Hermes, Rolex, Pfizer, Sony or Rolex consumables.

Insights into questions of value and motivation are provided by works such as Collecting: An Unruly Passion - Psychological Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 1994) by Werner Muensterberger, To Have & To Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors & Collecting (London: Allen Lane 2002) by Philipp Blom and A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes & the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Holt 1995) by Nicholas Basbanes.

Questions of online and offline trust are explored in several guides on this site.

     forgery and online outlets

The arrival of online trading mechanisms such as eBay - where you can supposedly buy a slightly-used human kidney, an autograph poem from John Lennon, an 'original' John Singer Sargent painting, baseballs 'signed' by Mother Teresa or a letter from Richard Milhous Nixon - offers new possibilities for the dissemination of small-scale literary forgeries.

Although major items are likely to undergo some authentication by leading auction houses (Worrall's account in The Poet & the Murderer of Hofmann's experience with Sotheby's offers a note of caution) much trade in online fora is essentially on the basis of buyer beware, with few pretensions to verification during the marketing process.

The 2000 US FBI 'Operation Bullpen', concerned with online sale of forged memorabilia, concluded with warnings that

• if the price is too good to be true, it is probably a fake (although "a high price does not by any means suggest authenticity either")
• certificates of authenticity are not guarantees of authenticity, as for example such certificates might themselves be forged or because the authenticator is "either a knowing or unknowing, but incompetent, participant in the fraud"
• a photograph of an athlete or celebrity signing an autograph is no guarantee the item is authentic: it is a common practice of forged memorabilia traffickers to include a photograph of the athlete/celebrity signing the item and photographs of themselves with the athlete/celebrity to lend credibility
• an individual or company having a paid signing session with an athlete or celebrity does not guarantee authenticity, as it is a common practice for forgers to 'mix-in' forged memorabilia with items signed during an autograph session.
• provenance is an indicator, so be wary of "far-fetched or elaborate stories which are difficult, if not impossible to verify".

      statistics and impact

Estimating the extent and significance of forgery and fraud is challenging for several reasons -

• there are few consolidated statistical collections across time, jurisdiction and sector (Australian Federal Police, US Department of Justice and Interpol reports for example aggregate much activity under diffuse categories of 'art crime' or 'consumer fraud')
• forgeries that are not detected (or are detected but then not reported/prosecuted) do not appear in statistical compilations
• media coverage, academic studies and official reports concentrate on high-profile cases (eg a forged Renoir or the Mormon 'Salamander' documents) rather than less exotic items. Items that change hands beneath authentication/reporting threshholds of around US$10,000 are 'off the radar'

US criminal justice statistics for the past decade suggest that forgery accounts for around 1.7% of sentences (compared with 1.9% for embezzlement, 9% for robbery, 14.3% for fraud and 40% for drugs). In 2001 there were 113,741 arrests for forgery and counterfeiting (compared with 147,451 for auto theft and 343,000 for fraud and embezzlement).

In the following pages we have supplied some indication of incidence and value but that data does not purport to be definitive.

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